Everyone knows a perpetual motion machine is impossible, yet marketing is a never-ending process. Therefore, part of the market planning lifecycle is the annual mid-year marketing plan.
An effective marketing strategy that includes a mid-year refresh can help avoid the New Coke advertising fiasco of 1985.
First, perform a current assessment of your business marketing plan and its effectiveness. The current state helps to establish strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT). With a SWOT in hand, you can get creative and reach more people with your message.
To learn more about staying on top of your game, read on.
Current State Assessment
You have to know where you are to know how to get where you are going. As a precursor to tackling your mid-year marketing plan, you should perform a current state assessment. Get out your previous plan and compare marketing data and analytics to stated goals and objectives.
Your previous plan should contain benchmarks that allow you to understand current state performance trends. Some key metrics to consider are:
- Conversion rate
- New or qualified leads
- Website traffic
- Customer reviews
If your current conversion rate, is low there are few new leads, or you are spending too much for each lead, your performance is currently trending in the wrong direction.
If your performance is good, now may be the time to approach a broader audience, or there may be a need to address weaknesses or threats to your marketing plan.
Mid-year Marketing Plan SWOT
A SWOT, built on the knowledge gained from a current assessment, answers the question, “What are you doing well right now and what could be improved upon?” The new mid-year marketing plan you develop should play to your strengths.
A sample marketing plan includes key components such as an executive summary, challenge statement, situation analysis, and customer analysis.
Develop a marketing outline that includes the above components and captures your company’s marketing strategy. The challenge statement should contain a description of the product being marketed and goals such as sales figures or the number of qualified leads to be generated.
As part of your focus on weaknesses, get rid of marketing practices you don’t need.
Based on customer and competitor analysis, start thinking about marketing that will work for you.
Cast a Wide Net and Be Creative
Your refreshed marketing plan should be your roadmap to success that helps you get the message about your product in front of more people. Now is the time to brainstorm for new ideas that broaden the audience you reach out to.
A digital marketing plan read that online marketing can reach many potential customers and offers the opportunity to be creative.
Your Marketing Goals and Tactics
Your mid-year marketing plan should generate a list of tactics you can use to reach your revised goals in the next couple of months.
You don’t have to implement your tactical plan on your own.
Contact Elle Marketing and Events for help bringing your mid-year marketing plan goals to fruition.